Chapter Sixteen
We are the steel no enemy can shatter.
We are the magic no Dark power can defeat.
We are the rock upon which evil breaks like waves.
We are Fey, warriors of honor, champions of Light.
Fey Warriors’ Creed
The Warriors’ Academy of Dharsa was an imposing structure perched on the crest of Anas Mena, the city’s northernmost hilltop.
Like all other buildings in the city, the Academy was built of gleaming white stone, but the golden spires on its roof were
great seyani blades stabbing up into the sky, and all along the rooftop, silverstone Fey warriors crouched in battle stance, arms extended,
curved meicha gripped in silverstone fists.
At the front of the building, the Warriors’ Gate leading into the compound was a broad, barrel-arched corridor with a series
of four inner gates that symbolized the four-hundred-year journey undertaken by every boy who grew to become a lethal, disciplined
Fey warrior within these walls.
The first gate was Shalin, the boy, carved from fresh-scented fruitwood that portrayed dozens of scenes from the first hundred years of a Fey youth’s
warrior’s training. The second was Cha, the blade.
Forged of shining steel, its gleaming surface was etched with the symbols of the advanced sword moves taught to Fey warriors during their second hundred years.
The third gate, Faer, which meant “magic,” was woven entirely of hundredfold weaves of power, symbolizing the mastery of magic that was the focus
of the third century of a Fey’s training.
And finally, Chakai, the champion, a carved silverstone gate as thick as a Fey was tall and spiked with hundreds of sharp steel Fey’cha blades.
Across its weighty, unyielding surface, impossible to move except through magic, the Warriors’ Creed was written in blazing
five-fold weaves.
Gaelen, Bel, Tajik, Rijonn, and Gil stood beside Rain on the stone-paved road leading up to the gate. All of them stared up
at the looming entrance, flanked on each side by two massive silverstone Fey warriors who looked down as if in grim warning
upon all who entered.
“You are certain you want to do this?”
Rain glanced at Gaelen. That had to be at least the fourth time the former dahl’reisen had asked the question since breakfast two bells ago. Though Gaelen looked as cocky as ever, his oft-repeated question revealed
just how thin that facade of self-assurance truly was.
“I am certain,” Rain answered, as he had each of the previous three times. “Are you?”
The former dahl’reisen arched one black brow. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” He gave a dismissive snort. “There are none within who could give
me cause for concern, even on their best days.”
“Good,” Rain said. “Because I’m sure there will be more than a few eager to try. You broke your honor. They will not let you
off gently.” He turned to lead the way through the Warriors’ Gate. Tajik, Rijonn, and Gil followed on his heels.
Gaelen hesitated just long enough to earn a knowing look from Bel.
“You are Fey once more,” Bel said with quiet reassurance. “Give them time to remember that, treat them with the respect your blade brothers deserve, and they will welcome you.”
Gaelen adjusted his weapons belts and set his jaw. “Let them keep their welcome—and their disapproval. If they allow pride
to prevent them from learning what skills I have to teach, they deserve their fate.”
“True,” Bel agreed. “Cloaking oneself in blind pride is as foolish as donning glass armor for war. I’m glad you recognize
it for the danger it is.”
Gaelen gave vel Jelani a sour look. “You are as subtle as a rultshart in rut.”
Bel responded to the insult with a grin. “Humility isn’t a poison draft,” he said. “It wouldn’t kill you to try a sip.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“Just think of the joy on your sister’s face when she sees you leading the warriors of the Fey into battle like the hero you
once were.” With a speaking lift of his brow, Bel turned and jogged after Rain, Tajik, Gil, and Rijonn.
Gaelen stood there, gaping after him. Without a backward glance, Bel thrust a hand behind his back, spun a fly out of Spirit,
and sent it buzzing straight into Gaelen’s mouth.
Vel Jelani was most definitely a master of Spirit. The bug felt entirely too real, right down to the wild flutter of its wings
and unpleasant taste. Gaelen spat instinctively before he had the sense to unravel Bel’s weave. His eyes narrowed as soft
laughter trailed back to his ears. “You will regret that, vel Jelani.” Setting his jaw, he loped after the Spirit master through
the long, arching tunnel of the Warriors’ Gate.
Rain, Tajik, Rijonn, and Gil emerged from the Warriors’ Gate and crossed the small first courtyard where, in days before the
Wars, when the Fey had flourished, young recruits would gather at the beginning of each season to be evaluated and assigned
a chatok who would guide them through their Cha Baruk.
Six steps led from the courtyard to the arched doorway that opened to the Walk of Honor, a long, continuous corridor that bordered the Academy’s large, central training field.
There, inside the walk, statues of famous warriors and chatoks lined the gleaming marble corridor, while polished Fey steel and the sorreisu kiyr of long-dead heroes hung on the walls.
Rain walked past the statues, feeling the weight of their inanimate stares, and unpleasant worms of doubt uncurled anew in
his belly. He’d walked this corridor more times than he could count, activating the Spirit weaves that recounted the triumphs
and sacrifices attributed to each of the great Fey until he could repeat each tale from memory.
Honor had been no mere word to the Fey enshrined here. They’d considered it an immutable truth, clear and uncompromising.
They’d died for it, selflessly, leading by example. What was he doing, bringing a dahl’reisen to join their honored company?
Bel and Gaelen caught up just as he passed through the door leading to the training yard. Rain turned his head to meet Gaelen’s
eyes, expecting to see his doubt reflected in the former dahl’reisen’s gaze. Instead, he found shock and something even more surprising . . . humility.
“It welcomed me,” Gaelen whispered. “As I passed through it, the Warriors’ Gate said, ‘Greetings, Gaelen vel Serranis, warrior
of the Fey, Champion of Light,’ just as it did when I completed my Cha Baruk. Just as if I’d never trodden the Shadowed Path.”
Bel clapped a hand on Gaelen’s shoulder and smiled, and Rain closed his eyes in relief. The tension that had been gathering
in his shoulders and belly flowed out like waters released from a dam. The Mists had welcomed Gaelen. Now, the Warriors’ Gate
had welcomed Gaelen. It was as if all the great magic of the Fading Lands were trying to reassure Rain that Gaelen’s honor
truly had been restored, that the shadows of his past had been wiped away as if they’d never been.
He took a deep breath and strode through the door onto the Academy’s training ground.
Open to the sky above, the yard was a vast expanse of bare ground surrounded by covered, colonnaded walkways. From one corner
to another, the warriors had gathered. Thousands of them. Ellysetta’s lu’tans and every unmated warrior in Dharsa—even a few dozen of the mated ones.
All eyes turned towards Rain as he and Ellysetta’s quintet entered and made their way to the end of the field, where a gallery
of gilded chairs sat under a rounded marble roof.
Long ago, when Feyreisen had been numerous, the Defender of the Fey and his Tairen Soul brethren would visit the Academy each
month and sit in those chairs to observe the training of the Fey warriors who would fight at their sides. Today, as they had
been for the last thousand years, the chairs were occupied by the venerable chatok, the mentors, of the Academy. They stood as Rain approached.
“Welcome, Feyreisen.” Jaren v’En Harad, the oldest of the chatok and Lord of the Academy, bowed and waved one arm towards the large, central chair carved with tairens’ heads that had an
unimpeded view of the field.
Rain hesitated for the briefest moment before moving forward to stand before it.
The grounds were silent, all eyes upon him.
“You have heard by now that the Mages have returned. Celieria needs our aid.” His eyes roved over the gathered warriors, seeing
the knowledge reflected back in their grim, stony faces.
“Evil has risen in Eld once more. It casts its shadow over our neighbor. Celieria cannot survive without our help, and so
we must give it. Because, as the words written on the Bor Chakai remind us each time we pass through the Warriors’ Gate, fighting is what Fey were born to do.”
He looked around at the faces of the Fey, most of whom had fought in the last Mage Wars, and saw the same memory, the same realization on many of them.
They knew exactly what he was asking of them, exactly what grim evil they would face if the Mages had grown strong again, but they knew that facing such evil was the task the gods had set upon them.
“But we have grown too few, my brothers. We will not long last against an Eld army even a quarter of the size we faced in
the Mage Wars. That is the reason I gathered you here today.” Rain crossed his arms and widened his stance, instinctively
bracing for the storm about to erupt around him. “I’m certain you’ve all heard how the Feyreisa restored a dahl’reisen’s soul—and not just any dahl’reisen, but the Dark Lord, Gaelen vel Serranis, himself.” All eyes went to the tall, icy-eyed warrior standing to Rain’s left. “He
has spent most of the last thousand years fighting Eld on the borders. I asked him here to teach those of you who are willing
to learn from him.”
“You want us to accept . . . him . . . as our chatok?” Outraged exclamations sprang from the lips of the gathered Fey.
“I do,” Rain said. “Bel, Tajik, show them why.”
The two warriors exchanged a brief glance, then shimmered into invisibility.